D&D 5E (2014) Sell me on: Midgard by Kobold Press

[Libertad]

I wrote a Let's Read for the latest setting version, Midgard Worldbook. It is an informative overview of the core setting.

 

[Rellott]

The tone in the world books makes the setting seem a little darker/grittier than FR. Probably a bit more like how I’ve heard Greyhawk is, though I have never read much about Greyhawk directly. A whole above-ground nation is ruled by vampires. The underdark is run by the Ghoul Empire. Baba Yaga is real and does what she wants. Slavery is real in many parts of the world, though is often a contested practice. Ancient mage wars unleashed Eldritch horrors on some parts of the world. You get the drift. That said, you don’t have to use that tone if you don’t want to, and a lot of that is dependent on where you set the adventure, too.

I think the setting as a whole would be easier for players to access than FR because A) it doesn’t have such a massive backlog of lore for every single ruin and tiny hamlet you come across, like FR does, and B) it is pretty much designed as an alternate “real world” like others have said. It’s easy to settle into some basic expectations, and things feel a bit more natural. When you look at the map, you can pretty much line things up with Europe, North Africa, and west Asia/the Middle East, and the setting takes a lot of cues from the relevant real-world cultures of their respective areas while still spicing it up with enough fantasy to keep things interesting and unpredictable.

 

[TheSword]

Do people really feel the need to research and be true to FR lore they don’t know or what doesn’t fit? The writers have always been crystal clear, change it - keep it as you like.

If you want Beregost to be 5 miles north of the Friendly Arm Inn instead of to the south because you want tensions with Elturel rather than Amn, then who cares?

I am pretty sure this is a non-problem for 90% of groups there. 5e writers after all have no problem retconning previous editions lore.

 

[Rellott]

Do people really feel the need to research and be true to FR lore they don’t know or what doesn’t fit? The writers have always been crystal clear, change it - keep it as you like.

If you want Beregost to be 5 miles north of the Friendly Arm Inn instead of to the south because you want tensions with Elturel rather than Amn, then who cares?

I am pretty sure this is a non-problem for 90% of groups there. 5e writers after all have no problem retconning previous editions lore.

OP asked for reasons to like Midgard. That is a reason some people have. If you want yet another thread about FR lore and the differences between editions, you can go make that thread.

 

[TheSword]

OP asked for reasons to like Midgard. That is a reason some people have. If you want yet another thread about FR lore and the differences between editions, you can go make that thread.

I’m saying that reason isn’t a reason since the start of 4e, when products stopped being about Lore to a large extent.

If one of the main reasons Midgard is better is a criticism of the Realms that isn’t true, then I believe it’s valid point to raise in this thread.

 

[humble minion]

There are plenty of players and GMs who get very deep into Realms lore, regardless of what WotC is emphasising in their FR products these days. OP knows their group better than we do, and is in a better position to judge whether or not this will be a pro or a con or a complete non-factor for them. But it's worth raising.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

As @jgsugden and @TheSword said, I usually go with a heavy modified FR, stealing bits from my other favorite settings along the way. It helps with my anxiety to have a basic frame instead of starting from scratch.

In my FRs, I go with:

• Dwarves are a rip-off of the dwarves from Dragon Age, with the whole caste system, the paragons and the renegades dwarves who left the the mountain, with Gauntlegrym replacing Orzamar.
• The elves are either high elves living in the few remaining enclaves (Evereska, Evermeet etc) or wood elves and city elves that are also stolen from Dragon Age.
• Plane-touched are rare and, in the case of Tieflings, use the old random look instead of 4e standards.
• Orcs are more Tolkien-styled, with a good dose of Swine-men from Darkest Dungeon.
• I keep a few things from 4e maps (Neverwinter in ruins and civil war, the floating motes doting the map, the Shaar desolation, the spellplagued lands etc).
• The gods can no longer interfere with the world. Some of them left a huge portion of their power to be able to no longer be considered god and be unaffected by Ao's decree (the Dead Three, Auril, Finder, Ubtao etc).

I also try to ignore the existence of Dragonborn and Gnomes the best I can

 

[Mercurius]

Its got a lot of a "dark fantasy Europe" vibe, with the default starting town, Zobeck, being closer to Medieval Germany than England. It is far more tightly constructed (internally and thematically consistent) than most kitchen sink settings. Yet at the same time, it has some distinct touches that explore the possibilities of fantasy, like the Wasted West, basically a land ravaged by a magical war.

If you want a great sylvan campaign region, Tales from the Old Margreve is excellent. Plus, it is very close to Zobeck, so if you start there, you've got it nearby.

 

[Gunnhrafn]

I haven't played in Midgard, but i own most of the books and love the setting hugely.

It's got a lot of depth of setting and culture, but nothing comparable to the sheer volume of Realmslore that's out there. It will reward players who enjoy immersing themselves in the lore of a setting.

As you say, it's very real-world analogous, but also, its regions vary strongly in class, race, deity composition. Nothing like as freewheeling or kitchen-sink as FR or Eberron. It's strongly nation-driven as opposed to FR which is more often city-states or semi-independent villages with lots of nebulous wilderness between. You'll need to lay out expectations. There'd be in-setting difficulties in playing a dragonborn in the Seven Cities or Nuria Natal regions, in some places dwarves are hated and feared as slavers, a cleric of Anu-Akhma would be respected in Nuria Natal but despised in the areas threatened by the Ghoul Imperium, druids would probably not be very welcome in Kush, and so on and so on. And gnomes are just the worst...

Upside - there's space here for basically any sort of game you want to play. Postapocalyptic? Wasted West. Political/religious intrigue? Seven Cities. Epic stand against the looming new darkness? Spend some time fighting the Ghoul Imperium or the Dragon Empire. Dungeon crawling? Elven ruins, Nuria Natal. Urban campaigning? Zobeck, or Per-Bastet. And the various ley line and shadow road methods of long-distance magical travel means that you'll actually be able to see the different parts of the campaign world without having to wait until high-level travel magic shows up.

The treatment of gods can be a plus or a minus depending on taste. Most regions have a pantheon of around 6-10 gods who they generally worship, but gods have 'masks' which are basically alternate identities that they assume in different pantheons. So the beer goddess of the not-Vikings is widely assumed to be a mask of the beer goddess of not-Egypt (or vice versa), but there's a lot of debate and friction about which war gods are or aren't masks of each other - and the gods aren't telling.

The books are stunningly gorgeous, though they do give away some of the big setting secrets in the campaign setting books, so be aware of that. There's a LOT of game material, subclasses, races, spells etc. It can sometimes be a bit underpowered or unclear, check it if you're going to use it. There's also a zillion feat-based magic subsystems - heiroglyphic magic, ring magic, chaos magic etc etc etc but you don't have to dive into that if you don't want to.

There is indeed a beer domain, though i think it's remiss of @Zardnaar to not also post the Ale-dritch blast cantrip, which soaks the target in icy beer for cold damage and possible intoxication for a round...

Only the Neinheimian gnomes are the worst. There are other gnomes scattered about, presumably also former servants of the elvish empire before the retreat. You'll find gnome populations scattered about in various nations/cities in the Worldbook.

 

[Voadam]

Lots of regions/areas are plug and play and can be taken out and put in your own homebrew similar to Forgotten Realms/Golarion. Lots of individual supplements along these lines including regional ones and a cool demon cults one.

A lot of dark slavic Eastern Eurpoean fairy tale influence.

The Baba Yaga gnome storyline is pretty fantastic with a gnomish prince having crossed her and she hunts down the entire race because of it with enough success to make them hide across the world and some to even sell out to devils for protection.

Open terrible Undead kingdoms.

Demonic evil sorcerer Mountain kingdom.

A neat Arabic dragon lords subsetting that incorporates dragons and a dragonborn type race well.

An area where a former magocracy summoned Cthulhoid WMDs that could only be stopped by epic time stop spells that mostly slows them down, now a magically irradiated wasteland with mutant goblin tribes running around.

Support for both Pathfinder 1e and 5e.

Plenty of Module support.

Lots of fleshed out non-human PC options.

A clockwork race so their warforged do not have the plant parts.

Full on viking raider dwarves and bearmen.


The gods of different pantheons might or might not be simply cultural masks for the underlying deities, not definitively defined.